The Future of Sales

This year, especially, many are pondering the future of sales and wondering about or planning for how to create the future that we want to see. Here are some of my thoughts.

Adaptive Selling

It’s a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) and has been for a while. This isn't new, but the impacts of a global pandemic hit hard for many. Yet, we’ve adapted. Virtual selling, remote work, video meetings (with kids and animals), you’re on mute, can you see my screen, dear God turn off your video… you know what’s changed. The future of sales is adaptive, as well. There is no one best methodology for every situation. I believe the reps who thrive in the future will possess great situational awareness and the ability to adapt to their buyers’ situation and state. This is advanced, for sure, and usually, only the elite sellers use adaptive methods well, but I believe we’ve started on this journey and we will need to figure out out to scale this in our sales forces.

The Best of the Past

There is a tremendous Knowing-Doing Gap in sales. Mack Hanan wrote his landmark book, Consultative Selling, over 50 years ago, and the number of people who are doing it as he intended is still on the far right side of the bell curve. I believe the future of sales will incorporate the best of the past… it will be consultative, value-based, and outcome-oriented. These things aren't new. They just aren't done well enough or consistently enough, by enough sales pros.

Buyer-Centric 

The future of sales will be far more buyer-centric. The consultative methodology above will need to be molded to work with modern buyers, in the current business climate, to help buyers buy, in an informed way, to achieve the desired outcomes that matter to them.

Check out this Buyer-Centric Selling Cheat Sheet, to get a headstart on making the shift.

Aided by Technology

The future of selling will certainly involve maximizing technology to improve efficiency. I have no doubt about the impact that AI, machine learning, and the next thing we haven’t thought of yet will have on selling. I just hope we have the sense to focus on effectiveness first and do the above things before we start blasting out 5,000 thought transference messages a day. (Or emails.) Here's another article with some additional perspective: https://www.mikekunkle.com/2019/05/15/implications-for-b2b-selling-in-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence/

As part of this category, I believe we will see a rapid increase in workflow performance support, likely in the form of what is being called guided selling. Companies like Altify, Membrain, and Revegy have been going this for years, and we're seeing newcomers on the scene now that are sporting AI algorithms and I expect, eventually, we'll see machine learning, as well. I also believe we'll see a rise in value selling support software such as DecisionLink and LeveragePoint.

There are many categories of sales enablement (sales content management, sales readiness, workflow performance support, conversation intelligence, virtual coaching, sales performance management, and more), and I predict we'll continue to see vendors widen their feature/functionality to support all of the categories, whether natively or through acquisition. Buyers are tired of stitching separate apps together into a "Frankenstack."

Selling the Way Buyers Want to Buy

Merging the Buyer-Centric and Aided by Technology themes, I also believe we'll see a rise in supporting B2B buyers in the way they want to buy, enabled by technology.

The first foray into this space that I became aware of a few years ago is Bill Butler's company, Journey Sales, and the concept of Smart Rooms. There's a lot more to it, but the short story is that a smart room is a digital space you establish where a team of buyers at one company can explore your solutions on their own, in a smart room, supported by AI recommendations, or by your company and sellers, as needed. I think we'll see more of this, and more digital platforms that bring buyers and sellers together, on the buyer's terms. Third-party software review sites have been doing this in a limited way for a while now, and I wonder whether buyers will prefer a vendor-agnostic platform versus a supplier-owned site, but I think selling organizations would be smart to implement both options (their own smart rooms and participating in third-party options). This will all be part of the GTM strategy of the future.

We're seeing growth in platforms, in general, and at SPARXiQ we've started bringing wholesale distributors and manufacturers together through POSConnection. I predict we'll see a lot more platforms that bring buyers, sellers, vendors, and channel sellers together, pushing commerce into a whole new era.

Human Differentiators

I believe the future of sales will be more human than many think. What I call “The Human Differentiators” will matter more than ever. Human differentiators are things like empathy, listening, critical thinking, good judgment, problem-solving, decision making, translating data to insight, ethical persuasion, connecting the dots, and good old-fashioned kindness. It won’t just be, “Have your bot call my bot, and we’ll do lunch.” (Although, I do want a Spot (the robot dog) from Boston Dynamics. Also see this.)

Problem-Centric (Not Product-Centric)

In line with that and the buyer-centric theme, I believe we’ll see a shift from product-centric, pitch-based selling, and rampant pitching on LinkedIn. I do think it will get worse before it gets better – but even that’s a choice we can make as we Create The Future. I believe we’ll see more buyer-centric, problem-focused selling. Eighty percent of selling is finding people who have problems you can solve, who want to solve them, and who can invest in doing it.

Systems Thinking / Change Management

I've gotten my best organizational performance improvement results when I have been able to maximize systems thinking for sales. If we want to create the future above or your best version of it, we won't do it with the common "Harder, Faster, Longer, Louder" approach that too many sales leaders use today. I believe we'll see sales enablement (or whatever we call it in the future), sales operations, and sales effectiveness merge into some sort of sales and sales management performance improvement function that focused on both running the business and using performance consulting, evidence-based methods, supported by outstanding change leadership and management. This will, of course, include the sales management operating system and coaching.

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More to Come

I'll be back to this theme. For today, I hope it's a thought-provoking start. Check out the hashtag #CreateTheFuture here on LinkedIn, to read other perspectives.

Best wishes for continued success in these challenging times, and stay safe and healthy out there!

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Thanks for reading, be safe out there, and by all means… let’s continue to elevate our sales profession.

Mike

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